


deep breaths

by Null0



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Death, Denial of Feelings, Heavy Angst, Ibuprofen, Kinda, No Name, Overdosing, Panic Attacks, Real Life, Reality, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Touch-Starved, Weird, Well - Freeform, dumping crap, so… it’ll be kinda, this is how i feel, when I’m anxious
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:09:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26832712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Null0/pseuds/Null0
Summary: ya’ll don’t need to read this.seriously.just me putting my anxiety in words.
Kudos: 3





	1. this is probably not a panic attack

He buries his fists into the large material. It’s soft, so, so, so soft. Comforting. It does nothing to help the near-painful churning of his stomach, or lighten the aching tingles that run up and down his arms, or soothe the way his muscles feel hollow and fractured. 

There’s a tightening in his chest, and it feels like his lungs are pressured, heart placed in a cage. He hopes love isn’t like the choking feeling in his chest, or he’d never want to fall in love. The world flashes, going white and black, and spotting up with colors he can’t identify in the split second that they appear. 

He’s breathing hard now, a buzzing in his ears. Breath is barely being forced through his throat, which he finds has _—maybe? Is this just him?—_ swelled up, a wheezing that has him teary-eyed. His chest, his body, hurts, with a pain that cannot be described, a feeling of depression that hovers around each short exhale that brings him closer and closer to the odd vertigo in his head. 

This isn’t a panic attack, right?

He felt a lot of things, but panic was never one of them, to his limited knowledge.

He’s never been good at feeling, with a rather blank expression and with a smile just a little off. 

And— _oh._

It feels like someone is strangling him, a deep pit in his stomach, his legs giving up on him. His skin, either exposed to air or not, feels too big, yet small on him, a muscular frame that is about to unhook his soul.

His heart feels like it’s about to explode, or implode, whichever, and he finds that he doesn’t really mind. His head is nothing more than a static screen, the white noise taking over and eyes blank to the world.

So hard to breath.

So hard to see. 

So hard to live.


	2. this is definitely not a panic attack — probably

He’s pleasantly numb. And then he’s not. All of a sudden there’s a tingling sensation in his body, getting stronger and stronger. His heart feels like it’s being squeezed. His lungs start to have trouble breathing.

The world is spinning, bright colors flashing warnings in his eyes. He takes a step and nearly stumbles as he tries to make his way through the hallway which is more like a blurry splotch and he’s squinting as he clutches his chest, feeling like he’s about to black out. He takes another step, his leg feeling like lead, his other limb feeling absolutely numb, tingling as he puts weight on it, and not in a good way. 

He then collapses, back against the wall, head bowed, eyes shut. Deep breathes, lungs gasping for air, and he wants to stop breathing, so he holds his breath, feeling the burn as his body tries to convince him to go for air.

The burn hurts as much as it sends sparks down his spine, a burning in his body, as if there are flowers taking root in his heart, sprouting out and growing at a speed far beyond others. It burns, a slow scorching that makes him shut his eyes even tighter, a heavy pressure in his ears. 

Blood rushes and pounds against his head, and the buzz of the world makes everything seem off. Vertigo hits, and he collapses against the wall. He doesn’t, not breathing even as there’s a hand hovering over him, trying to get his attention.

A passerby had appeared at some point, but there was still too much going on that he could pay attention to.

The words sound muffled over the roar of blood in his ears, the panicked beat of his heart. His stomach takes a deep swoop, and he curls over his stomach, feeling the person’s hand start to get closer in slow motion through the slit of his eyes. 

No. 

No.

He jerks away, not wanting the stranger to pay attention to his weakness, his small crack in his shield. Shame burns in his stomach, mixing with the gnawing pain that leaves him tensing. He doesn’t want to get closer to this stranger, listen to whatever this person is saying.

The stranger is still talking, lips awkwardly moving in a way that he knows he should hear, but the rush of blood in his ears still takes over. The hand is still hovering over him, in a careful way that leaves him woozy, and the other carefully telegraphs their movements as the person tries to touch him again.

No.

No.

No.

He doesn’t want to admit how much he wants to grab onto that hand, a stranger’s hand that may it be. How much he wants to feel contact other than the rough slide of clothing and cold feel of chairs. 

A little part of him, small, minuscule — he promises, _he promises_ _(can I please have a hug ———? please? no._ **behave** _)_ — it’s small, so small, just a speck, encourages him, urges him, to grab ahold of the stranger’s hand and feel.

At the sliver of the thought, he pushes himself away from the person, eyes staring down at his feet as he tries to make his way out of the little hall he had let himself fall apart in. 

It takes a few steps, but he finally figures out how to properly walk, a difference from the tangled stumble he had a few seconds prior.

(Something inside him aches _—_

_can i have a hug_

_maybe — maybe_

_just a little touch_

_i feel a bit empty_

_a tiny bit_

_please?_

He ruthlessly pushes that part of him down.)

  
  



	3. hahaha suicidal? me? never.

He stares at the bottle. 

It’s innocently sitting there, perched on the shelf. It doesn’t taunt him, doesn't mock him, it’s an inanimate object.

His ears nearly twitch at the TV noises coming out of the other room. Thoughts rush around in his mind, a jumble of nothing. With one hand, he reaches up and grabs it. He quietly closes the cabinet door and inside his hand is the bottle. On silent feet, he runs upstairs, the carpet muffling the steps he takes.

Thoughts rush through his mind, and his hand clenches around the bottle, before immediately unclenching. As he races to his room, there’s the soft rustle of clothing, and clinking of the pills shaking around in the bottle. He doesn’t look back, but with his foot, he shoves the door closed, closing it with a click.

He collapses on the carpet, a rough exhale forced out of him. The boy rests his head against the bed frame, letting the bottle of pills roll out of sight as he stares at the ceiling. The ceiling is very interesting. His body is lax — well, mostly. He had searched up online if Ibuprofen could kill, and it could, if someone overdosed. Kidney failure, likely hurting like hell. Blah, blah, blah. Death.

It could.

He doesn’t know how to feel about that. He has a math project due tomorrow that he hasn’t started. The project was given to them two weeks ago, and he still hasn’t started it.

He still hasn't started it. 

It’s currently afternoon, light shining through the gaps in the blinds, dust being highlighted as it steadily floats around. The sun warms up his face, and his closed eyelids are lit up with the changing colors of light. He takes a shuddering breath and opens his eyes.

The light makes him squint, groping around for the bottle. He stares at it, mind recalling the information he had searched up.

He doesn’t feel nervous. He doesn’t feel afraid. He doesn’t feel eager.

He doesn’t feel at all.

His hand is steady as he opens the bottle. He doesn’t bother being quiet. No one will pay attention, and everyone in the house knows that you don’t go into each other's rooms unless extremely bored or calling someone to do something. This is his family. A bunch of strangers who live in the same house.

He doesn’t even know his dad’s favorite color, much less his older brother’s.

His mom? He avoids the hell out of her. It makes his head hurt when he looks at her, memories of scoldings and lectures surfacing. It seems every time they meet, him and his mom, the only thing she does is tell him to be better. That he isn’t enough, that he should do this, that his dad would say to do that, that his behavior is unacceptable, that his personality shouldn’t be like this.

(And of course, _where did she go wrong? Why was she stuck with them. Them. This family is absolutely_ **_deplorable_** _._

There is the flat slap of her hand on the steering wheel. His eyes firmly stared outside, watching the world pass by.)

He drops the cap on the floor, and stares at the pills. Small. Swallowable. Almost clinically, he thinks that he should’ve gotten a glass of water to even _think_ about doing this. But, he tips the bottle back, and in a surge, the pills all roll down, into the palm of his hand. After most of them are in his hand, he stops. He places the open bottle down on the floor again, and morbidly stares at the pills.

There’s a lot, maybe more than fifteen? He’s never been good at judging things, whether it be time, amount, space, he’s awful at trying to figure those things out. Whatever. They’re round, a curious shape. Small. Using his other, free, hand, he pinches one in between his index finger and his thumb, raising it closer to his eyes. It seems so innocent.

He tosses it back. 

One.

It uncomfortably goes down, throat forced to swallow something without breaking it down first. His mouth feels slightly dry, as if the pill had taken some of his saliva with it as it went down, which really didn’t matter. 

So he picks up another pill, and tosses it back.

Two.

Then the next. 

Three. 

And the next. 

Four. 

And the next. 

Five.

The next. 

Six.

Next.

Seven. 

Next. 

Eight. 

Next. 

Nine. 

Next. 

Ten.

Next. 

Eleven. 

Next.

Twelve. (His hand barely pauses at this one.)

Next. 

Thirteen. 

Next. 

Fourteen. 

Next.

Fifteen. (Distantly, he notes that there are more than fifteen.)

Next. 

Sixteen. 

Next.

Seventeen.

Next. 

Eighteen. 

Next. 

Nineteen.

Next. 

Twenty. 

Next. 

Twenty-one.

Next. 

Twenty-two.

Next.

Twenty-three. 

Next.

Twenty-four.

His hand pauses. That’s the last one, unless he grabbed the other pills out of the bottle, but he doesn’t feel like putting that much effort in, and he wobbles as he tries to stand up. 

He stays down. The boy’s head drops back to stare at the ceiling again. His mouth is dry, and it had taken more effort to swallow the pills after it reached the twenties. His throat throbs with the feeling of the pills, an odd feeling stuck in his throat.

He just caps the bottle, placing it behind a sign. If someone really wanted to search his room, yeah, they could find it, but what would that show?

He’s the good kid, the angelic one, the one who doesn’t get screamed at.

Are they going to accuse him of taking the Ibuprofen?

No, they wouldn’t.

The boy, not yet a teen, still twelve, grits his teeth. Fine. Okay. Giving it a chance.

Finally, he pulls himself up, and starts on his math project. (He doesn’t actually start until 12:34 am.)

.

.

.

The next day — to his disappointment? Or to his relief? — he wakes up. He had gotten little to no sleep, working on the project, barely finishing it at five o’clock in the morning. He had gone to sleep, tension seeping out of his bones. 

Then he wakes up, and he’s tense. ‘Cause he’s still here. 

Still here.

.

.

.

When he gets the project back, he has a B+. 

Apparently, he didn’t explain the graph in detail enough.

He kinda ~~hates~~ dislikes seventh grade. Sixth grade was so much easier, even if he barely managed to pass Honors English.

  
  
  



End file.
